Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/265

 her mantilla had slipped from her head to her shoulders unnoticed.

"I saw her when they brought her," a younger woman said, and she was one whose hand seemed to have laid her child down to its pillow to slip away and stand with aching heart to wait the opening of the carcel door. "She is young and pretty; her hair is the color of wine-grapes. What a pity that bullets must tear her soft bosom and burst into her heart!"

"It is not a time of pity, doña; it is a time of war."

The speaker was a harsh, gray man, straight in the shoulders like one whose business had been arms. He turned with disfavor in his drawn brows, fixing the young woman with stern eyes.

"But there can be mercy, even in war," the woman insisted, undaunted by his glare.

"Yes, doña, but when the Yankees come, yelling like devils, what will you have to say about pity then? Who will pity you when they cut your throat and trample your children under their horses' feet? Ah, that will be another thing!"

"There must be an example," said another, and he also was old. "If this plotting with the enemy is permitted, every Yankee in this pueblo will turn on us and eat our hearts. This will be an example to them—this will keep them in their places."

"A pitiful example, then, Don Felix," one at his side declared, asperity in his voice. "It may be next to treason to say it, but to me this thing is